Highly-Speculative Case Study: Homosexuality in Androids

We here at Underwire are big fans of the hilariously un-PC pilot for Gay Robot. Based on a track from Adam Sandler’s album Shhh…Don’t Tell, the show was never picked up, but it’s still making the rounds on YouTube. Sure it riffs on almost every idiotic, distasteful stereotype in the book, but that’s kind of what makes it funny.

Plot Synopsis: Gay Robot, created when a wine cooler was spilled on him during development, hangs at a frat house. When Gay Robot can’t nab a date for a formal, the brothers build him one out of a vacuum cleaner, bucket and plunger (they dub their creation “R2Steve2”). Gay Robot then tries online dating. More hilarity ensues…

This show got us thinking… Is Gay Robot the first bot to come out of the closet? An Ellen DeGeneres for droids everywhere? Maybe so. Sure robots seem asexual, lacking in the proper, um, equipment to have a sexual orientation. However, some classic bots from years passed clearly boast some stereotypically gay traits their human handlers either don’t see (or chose to ignore). After the jump, check out our far-from-definitive list of “Were they?” robots. If there’s any we’ve missed – and we’re sure there are – let us know! – Steven Leckart and Angela Watercutter

In no particular order…

C-3PO – Much like the frat brothers in Gay Robot built R2Steve2, young Anakin Skywalker built himself a boyfriend (OK, so he actually built him to help his mother, but, well… yeah). Svelte, golden tan and British — he’s a dish. And if you’re lucky enough to have his undying loyalty, he’ll call you “Master Luke.” The Star Wars Databank says “the droid that Anakin built was truly remarkable. It lacked an outer shell, though, and Threepio had to live with the indignity of being ‘naked,’ with his parts and wiring showing.” This was probably not an accident. R2-D2 – The Databank calls Artoo “resourceful, spunky and adventurous” and we’re pretty sure we saw that in an ad on Gay.com personals. Artoo’s devotion to C-3PO is unflinching, very Bert and Ernie and it’s totally possible that all those beeps and blips are just a Morse code way of giving out your number to Stormtroopers.

Rosey the Robot, the maid on The Jetsons – C’mon this one’s easy. She even looks like Rosie O’Donnell. She’s kind of like Alice on The Brady Bunch — only with circuits.

The Robot on Lost in Space – We’re not 100 percent sure on this one, but Jack McFarland on Will & Grace did call him a “big space queen.” Jack wouldn’t lie.

Twiki from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century – As if the Threepio-wannabe outfit wasn’t enough, he wore rave-ready jewelry and had a name that sounded vaguely like “Tweaker” (or “Twink” for that matter). Oh, and apparently he has a very suggestively-shaped head.

T-800 from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines – T-800 travels back in time (yet again) and just happens to land outside a male strip club? What are the odds? Then he steals the boots, leathers and motorcycle from one of the strippers (how convenient they’re the same build!). Later in the film, instead of “hasta la vista” or “I’ll be back,” T-800 actually adopts the catch phrase “talk to the hand.” In case you’re not keeping score: that’s a muscular, leather-bound biker robot that says “talk to the hand” and goes to male strip clubs. We’re just saying…